The Power of "Thank You."

June 30, 2012

81.6 pounds to go

"You could be a model if you lost weight."

"You're a pretty girl, but you need to lose some weight."

"You look younger when you're thin."

"You look great, you look like you've lost your bulk."

In my multiple journeys to "thindom" these are real things that people have said to me.  At the time when they were said, each statement threw me into a fit. What do you mean I could be a model?  Hello insult wrapped up in a compliment, you sneaky bitch.  The second one was Susan Powter (remember her from 20 years ago? The lady on the infomercial waving around meat slices?) who came to visit the Borders store I was managing decked out in spandex and fluorescent pink dreads.  I think I was so shocked by her appearance that I sputtered out "yes, you're right."

Here's the thing I've realized: when people say these things to me, even if it hurts me initially I have to remind myself that they are trying to pay me a compliment.  Typically when someone takes the time to comment on my weight loss, it means that they've noticed.  However the way they try to express themselves is a combination of trying to be nice + a bit of their own neurosis.  And sometimes people just say stupid shit without meaning to -- it's part of being human.

Here is an example of plain idiocy that fell out of someone's mouth recently.  Granted, it has nothing to do with weight loss but it will help demonstrate what I'm talking about.  I was at work and a new rep had been hired in a particularly grueling category.  It was his first week and came around to talk to our department and we went around introducing ourselves.  When he realized that I was the manager, he didn't do a very good job of hiding his surprise.  We small-talked about his position and I sympathized with the tough guys he had to deal with, having been in those shoes in the past.  Then I asked something along the lines of "what's your secret to handle them well?"  And he said:  "Well, they're good ol' boys, and I can be a good ol' boy along with the rest of them."  The one thing that clearly, I am unable to do.  Later, when I was talking with my boyfriend about it I said "I think he was uncomfortable, so he just reached up and pulled out of thin air, the worst possible response for the situation."

This guy is probably thinking about marshmallows.

Not your boobs.

Coming back to weight loss, I find that when someone pays me a compliment (or tries to) the best response is a simple "thank you."  I always feel when someone says something nice to me that I have to give an explanation.  Them: "You look like you've lost weight."  Me: "Thank you, I've been working out 3 times a week, and I ate cherries and a protein bar for breakfast.  I also find that snuggling with my cat and reading a book helps me to de-stress and keep my appetite under control.  And you know what?  I really love hamburgers.  Man, I would love one right now.  Did you know I haven't had a french fry in a month? Let's go get french fries.. that sounds good.  Let's go right now."  Them: "Uh, I have to go."  Here is the easier version: them: "You look like you've lost weight."  Me: "Thank you."  It avoids my need to explain and also allows them to give me a compliment and be nice to me, which is ultimately what we're both after.

I'm not saying that discussions are strictly verboten, but if you're just learning how to manage the feedback without being oversensitive to what people might say, this method is helpful.  It also helps stop the internal dialogue of what someone might possibly mean.  God knows I have been in situations where someone says to someone else "you look like you've lost weight." Response: "What, was a I a fat cow before?  Sob."  Just because someone says something kind, does not mean they felt the opposite just days before.  Relax, breathe, and let people say nice things, and let them simply be nice things to say.

No Thanks, I'm Full

June 23, 2012

85 Pounds to Go

When I was considering becoming a lawyer I spend a good 3 months studying furiously for the LSAT.  One of the question sets was called "Logical Reasoning" where they would give a brief statement and then multiple choice questions where the correct answer would "logically follow" the statement.  Easy, right? Wrong.  One of my first lessons was: "when someone says something is false, it is not the same thing as saying something is not true."  There is a grey area between true and false where lawyers make all their money.  You can apply this to just about anything, for example, the weather: not raining does not mean that it's sunny outside.  You get my drift.  It also, inevitably applies to food and eating.  I've been discovering that not hungry is not the same thing as full.  Essentially, there is a timeline as to how I feel with food:

Friends don't let friends stab bunnies. 

I've been so used to living in the Full - Stuffed realm for the past few years that stuffed has become the new full.  I wouldn't feel satisfied until I was bursting.  Now that I have been in the process of creating the habit of eating sensibly I have to re-train myself on what feels right.  If I let my self get to the stage of starving & bunny stabbing, inevitably my blood sugar is in the toilet and I would like to plow through a burger and fries like nobody's business.  However, in the past I would eat so frequently that I forgot what it felt like just to be hungry - it's like a morning alarm clock telling me to get up.  It's not the end of the world, it's not the point of passing out, it's simply a tummy rumble and a feeling of small / emptiness.  

I think I come from a family that thinks in extremes (It's Horrid!  I love it! Rabble rabble rabble) and in my own way I've spent a lot of my time classifying feelings and actions into column "A" or column "B."  Whenever I would write papers for school growing up I would pick a side of the argument and give no concessions.  Baby, I am going to WIN this thing.  I had quite a few teachers point out that "maybe I was writing a little too heavy handed" and it was hard for me to come to the middle.  I thought If I didn't have a strong opinion my opinion must be weak.  It's the same thing with food - I would only go to extremes - starving or stuffed and never got to know the middle ground where normal people spend most of their lives.  It's an interesting place to get to know.

This is not reality.
(I also suck at drawing)

The other thing about being full is the emotional connection of being "filled up" or food replacing a friend or support.  This is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to write about because I would hazard a guess that everyone with a weight problem struggles with this but no one wants to admit to it.  How does one take the importance off food? To decriminalize it so to speak?

I've been spending a lot of time this week trying to think back when food switched from being fuel to a comfort in my life.  And the answer is not pretty, nor something to be particularly proud of.  I do remember the moment, I was 18 years old and truly heartbroken for the first time.  Sure, I had had a series of crushes and disappointments with love prior to this but this was serious.  It was the first time someone told me they loved me back and then left.  Plus, it was the summer before college and I was terrified to leave home and start the next step of my life.  I remember taking a book and a container of chocolate cake frosting and eating the whole thing in my parents study.  (I didn't even like it which baffles me now.)  For some reason I didn't trash the evidence, I hid it.  What a weird thing to do.   At the time I wasn't even determined to take the frosting and eat the whole thing, I was just looking for something to make my first real experience with grieving bearable. 

Fast forward to now, and I think it was a slow conditioning from that moment of replacing emotional support with food.  This past week has been a bitch and there have been a few times where I was not hungry but I could feel my body screaming at me to go get a big meal.  And I thought to myself, "do I really want a hamburger or do I need to talk to a friend right now?"  It sounds like a silly and shameful thing to admit, but at least I am starting to recognize it. 

For the love of bread

In the thick of it

June 16, 2012

87 pounds to go

For the love of bread

            Dear Bread, I love you.  xoxo Bonnie

Everyone has the one thing that is their food nemesis.  Maybe nemesis is too strong of a word, it's not necessarily an enemy, a crutch or a burden, but almost like an old friend.  The one thing that you crave the most above all things.  Most people I know have the one of these three: ice cream, candy or chips.  For me, I could really take or leave those things.  Initially when someone asked me what my weakness is I said a hamburger and fries - end a bad day with a big meal.  And it's true, I do get that way frequently.  But even more so than 'big food' is bread.  I fucking love bread - sourdough, challah, rosemary rolls, dinner rolls, focaccia dipped in vinegar and oil, greasy bread buds at the restaurant.  I've been eating toast for breakfast for longer than I can remember and even growing up my mom said I smelled like toast when I stumbled into the kitchen bleary eyed and mostly asleep.  That's how she knew it was me.  Recently when I moved into my condo I was unpacking my kitchen with my best friend and I got excited when I unpacked my toaster oven, singing "yum yum, yeah toaster oven!"  And she was confused and asked "do you have special recipes that you make with your toaster oven?"  Me: "No, I just really like toast."  She gave me a look like a dog hearing a high whistle: "what the fuck are you talking about?"

I know I love bread, and I went to Jimbo's the other day for lunch and ordered my favorite sandwich - the rancho roast beef - but modified to have 1/2 the meat, no cheese and light vegan mayonnaise to cut out bulk calories so I can eat it.  Knowing what I know now, I sat down on their patio and just took time to eat the sandwich and examine how I felt when I ate it.  The bread was the white-as-can-be sourdough, warm from the oven and sweet jesus I could feel the happiness receptors in my brain click on as I took the first few bites.  It fascinated and alarmed me at the same time: why does it feel like my body is giving a literal, positive chemical reaction to this food?  Is it a longstanding emotional attachment that turned into an endorphin-like high after years of conditioning?

I don't know if my food crutch is unusual, or if I just think of myself as weird so I assume no one would have this same attachment.  After my lunch experience, I started thinking about it even more.  What is my first memory that involves bread?  And then I remembered: when I was about 5 or 6 years old, living in our cavernous house in Scripps Ranch before we moved to Poway, my Dad used to always make bread.  In fact, I think he made it when we were in Mission Valley but it was when we moved to Scripps Ranch that he first let me help him.  I remember standing in the kitchen on a plastic booster stool kneading Challah dough and covered in flour.  It was like a toy -- gooey and fun -- the consistency somewhere between play-doh and ooblech.  (Ooblech came from a Dr. Suess book that I made my parents read to me over and over, about a boy and this green goo - ooblech - that got everywhere.  They would mix cornstarch, water and green food coloring and I would be entertained for hours.) When the dough was ready, my Dad taught me how to braid it, which is where I first learned how to braid.  Then it had to sit for 30 minutes and rise and we would pop it in the oven to bake.  It always tasted amazing - that white egg bread, gooey and warm.  It was a ritual.

I think that was the beginning and from then I discovered all sorts of bread that I liked.  I think it's also why I like craft beer so much - the wheat and the barley taste from bread wrapped up in a bottle.  I feel fortunate that my body picked something that is healthy and I can eat it every day if I want to -- just not the whole loaf.

The Mad And Angry Beginning

June 6, 2012

The Mad and Angry Beginning 

90 pounds to go

This is me.  This is my body.

So, I started a diet about 3 weeks ago and I'm hungry all the time.  It's the basic calorie restriction; math is math - if you cut 3500 calories a week from your at-rest metabolism (1800 for me) you will lose 1 pound per week.  It sounds simple.  I've been eating (or trying to) 1400 calories a day and I spend the majority of the day rationalizing with myself when really I'm just starving.  It feels like I've finally reached that point in my life where I've lived long enough and struggled with my weight long enough that nothing fucking works.  There is no fad that's going to make the weight fall off and keep it off.  The traditional count-your-shit seems to be the-boring-but-it-works solution.

I've heard that when you truly start dieting like I have recently  you can go into a "food mourning" period.  A grief stage for us food addicts.  Mine seems to be particularly grueling.  I've added and deleted about 3 bulky paragraphs trying to describe this but it sounds like lunatic raving so I'm leaving it out.  But believe me when I say: 'sister, I'm a-mournin'. 

The other thing that irritates me is that I've recently seen a lot of articles come out by people who talk about their weight loss journey after the battle is over.  (A.k.a. "Summer is here, time to start thinking about all those cheese doodles you ate over the winter.")  Not that they don't deserve kudos - they do, but all the work is done.  We hear about the battle after the war is won, not while they are struggling.  And as with any struggle in my life, it always seems like it wasn't so bad once it's done.  But man, while you're in the thick of swinging the sword all bets are off.  I hear the "oh it was tough" and "here's my embarrassing and shameful habit I had" but they've conquered it.  It's not the same to recollect reaching for the twinkie in a time of need compared to when you're actually forcing your ass to get out and walk so you don't raid the fridge even though there's nothing interesting in there. 

Fuck you

AND THEN.  And then there's my own body image.  Here's the thing, I'm not a skinny girl right now.  But I don't consider myself a whale.  When I first went to the weight loss clinic to have my scary "initial diagnosis" the scale tipped much higher than I thought was on my body.  Granted, in the last 2 months I've put on weight - probably 15-20 pounds which pushed me to the point of being uncomfortable in my own body.  I have been so stressed out with my job that I literally was eating everything that wasn't nailed down.  Big Thai lunch, or noodles and then for dinner a fuck-off sandwich and a beer.  Wasn't that a shocker when I found out that I was probably packing in 2500 - 3000 calories a day.  However, before my recent stress eating binge, I was really happy with myself.  I felt good in my own body.  Yes, I have a gut but I know how to dress myself so people look at my succulent curves instead.  My body idol is Joan from Mad Men, and there are days when I feel as bad-ass as her.

Yes Joan, I have a girl crush on you

So here's the thing: I went into the weight loss clinic and they told me I need to lose 100 pounds.  That is a fucking daunting number to deal with.  This is not me fishing for compliments, but I just don't feel like I LOOK like a 100 pound overweight whale.  But seeing that number and dealing with this food restriction certainly makes me feel like one.  It's like all that power and belief in myself got taken away in one swoop with the body that a weight loss clinic told me that I am supposed to have.  Well, I've lost 10 pounds so now there's only 90 left to go.  But here's the question I'm dancing around to get to: do I have a misperception on how I look?  Do I really look like someone who seriously needs to lose weight and am deluding myself because I happen to like the way I look?  Do I have a skinny spirit inside a more-than-voluptious body?  Every time I see pictures of myself I cringe but when I look in the mirror I feel good.

I could go into more specifics: I wear between a 14 and a 16 and I'm 5 foot 4.  If I loose 100 pounds I will be a 6.  Maybe even a 4. Although in expensive clothes probably still an 8 because women's wear is fucked with sizing.  When I've told those who are close to me that the number is 100 pounds they give me statements of disbelief.  Is it because we're all used to people being at least overweight if not obese?  Is it comfort talk?  Is it somewhere in the middle?  I'm finding more and more recently (like within the last 2 months) women who are seriously obese come up to me and saying things like "us girls have to stick together on this" and it makes me cringe inside.  I don't feel like I'm part of a fat club that needs defending.  I just feel like myself.  That alone and that fucking number I saw at the clinic have motivated me to take me this far, but dieting from a place of shame never really worked for me.  Like, oh my god I'm a horrible looking cow so I need to continue to starve myself.  I just don't know where to find this happy place in the middle to make this a journey rather than an all-out battle with my body.

I hear the blast of the battle horn in my head.  Let the games begin.

Freedom!